Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1532501
10 OPINION maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 19 FEBRUARY 2025 PARLIAMENTARY Secretary for Equality and Reforms, Re- becca Buttigieg, writing in a local daily, stated that social media's impact on our lives should be studied, discussed and followed by the necessary regulatory changes to protect our citizens. European Commission pres- ident Ursula von der Leyen mandated our Commissioner Glenn Micallef with the task of studying the impact of so- cial media and excessive screen time on young people and on the broader impacts of social media. Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and other popular digital plat- forms knowingly use manip- ulative design features and al- gorithms to keep users hooked. Children and young people are particularly susceptible to this, staring at their screens for countless hours, becoming ad- dicted, depressed and plagued by anxiety. Losing control over their own behaviour, they ne- glect other activities. A prob- lem so serious that politicians need to intervene. At least that is the assump- tion of our government, an ap- proach that ostensibly is being taken on board by the Opposi- tion and other NGOs. Cyberbullied children are on the increase as they face har- assment and emotional distress online due to the anonymity and ease of communication on social media platforms. This follows right on the heels of disrupted sleep that negatively affects both their physical and mental health. Constant exposure to unreal- istic images and standards on social media can cause anxiety, depression and low self-esteem in teens. Moreover, they may not fully understand the risks of sharing personal informa- tion online, leading to potential exploitation or data breaches. Any future legislation should prohibit underage teens from using social media or make it contingent on parents' con- sent. Additionally, when open- ing an account, social media companies should be obliged to verify the age of the user, for example, by using an ID or AI- based facial recognition. Ideal- ly, existing accounts of under 16-year-olds should be deleted. Alternatively, legislation could take the approach of granting parents or legal guard- ians access to their children's accounts. Either way, in an effort to curb minors' screen time, social me- dia companies should be forced to create a default curfew for minors' accounts between, say, 10:30 PM and 6:30 AM. Taken together, one or the other type of legislative framework men- tioned above would intervene in the platform architecture by prohibiting a whole range of presumably addictive practices, designs or features. As things stand, European legislators seem to be taking the US crusade against social media as an inspiration. In a vague resolution, the EU Parliament called on the EU Commission to examine if and how the EU should regulate presumably addictive designs of digital services. The Par- liament cast the net wide and listed a variety of practices that are suggested to be addictive or manipulative: infinite scrolling, autoplay of videos, personal- ised recommendations, push notifications, like buttons and more. Prior to that resolution, an amended EU Regulation on a Single Market for Digital Ser- vices imposed new obligations, particularly on large digital platforms, but has only been in full force since February last and is turning out to be insuffi- cient to protect minors. The common trend seems to be a belief that the use of social media inherently has negative effects and consequently, that intense use must in and of itself be problematic and classified as an "addiction". France has already passed a decree requiring social me- dia platforms to verify ages and obtain parental consent for minors under 15. The UK and the Netherlands are close to banning smartphones from schools. This pitfall of technological determinism obscures the nu- merous advantages and the importance of social media in the personal, social and cultur- al experiences of children and teenagers. They do not mere- ly consume humorous videos or hateful remarks on social media. For many young indi- viduals, social media is a key resource for global events and political updates. For example, daily social media usage for this purpose is seen in half of 14- to 29-year-olds in Germany, with a third using Instagram exclu- sively. In addition, social media serves as an important social environment for children, al- lowing them to connect with their peers, explore new view- points, experiment with vari- ous identities, something that constitutes a significant de- velopmental challenge during adolescence, and provide mu- tual support, especially vital for marginalised groups. Indeed, for a great majority of children, the amount of social media use does not affect their well-being at all. Still, important critical ques- tions remain unanswered. What impact do existing men- tal health conditions have on social media usage? How about the content? To what extent do the short-term impacts of so- cial media usage on well-being build up as time passes? Re- Children's excessive screen time Mark Said is a veteran lawyer Mark Said